


Daan Tat

by abrae



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Chinese New Year, Comfort Food, Friendship, Gen, Implied Angst, Melancholy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 17:22:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6575254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abrae/pseuds/abrae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Sunday, late in January, a light snow falling in the deepening dusk. He should be working on the paper he's got due next Thursday, but the snow is mesmerizing. It muffles the melancholy thoughts that whisper through Chowder's mind more and more these days, and so he simply lies on his side on his bed and looks out the window, the Haus quiet around him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Daan Tat

**Author's Note:**

> I just really wanted Chowder and Lardo to bond a bit.
> 
> The 'fuh' thing is courtesy of my Japanese/Korean-American SIL, who's married to a Chinese/Vietnamese guy; some things you can't make up.

Another winter settles in, colder and more bitter than the last. It was bad enough when Shitty and Jack had turned their attention to impending graduation and everything that entailed; now, with Ransom, Holster, and Lardo all gearing up with gritted teeth and grim determination for their own sprint to the finish line, the Haus seems darker and less inviting than it ever has before. Not even Bitty's smiles, forced as they are for reasons Chowder only suspects, seem able to warm the chilly crevices widening between them all. **  
**

It's Sunday, late in January, a light snow falling in the deepening dusk. He should be working on the paper he's got due next Thursday, but the snow is mesmerizing. It muffles the melancholy thoughts that whisper through Chowder's mind more and more these days, and so he simply lies on his side on his bed and looks out the window, the Haus quiet around him.

It's dark by the time he hears someone coming up the stairs - Lardo, from the sound of it. She'd left early this morning, long before Chowder was awake to hear, and he absently wonders where she's been to be getting back this late. He'd ask, but lately he hasn't been sure how to talk to her. She's been worried about Bitty, Chowder's been worried about them both, and Bitty just smiles - the one that doesn't reach his eyes - and stays in his room with the door closed more than he ever did before.

Nonetheless, he sits up with a sigh - then a groan over the muscle he'd pulled in last night's game; rubs his eyes and is just about to grab his laptop to do some work when he hears Lardo call from her room, "Can you come here for a minute?"

"Me?" Chowder calls back, to Lardo's soft snort.

"Yeah, you. Come here - I've got something for you."

Chowder's eyebrows rise and he climbs down off his bed to see what it is, entering to find a small, pink bakery box on her bed and Lardo with a rare smile on her face.

"Grab that chair and come here," she says, and Chowder does so, plopping down in front of her. He gets a small whiff of a familiar smell and looks up eagerly.

"Is that - " he begins, and Lardo pushes the box towards him.

"They're for you," she says. "I went home today for the holiday and… " Lardo shrugs. "I thought you might like some."

Chowder's grin widens as he slices the tape on the top of the box with his fingernail, opening it to find eight perfectly yellow egg tarts inside.

"Lardo!" he exclaims as he takes one out. His eyes close as he breathes it in, and it smells of San Francisco, of his house, of family and food that no one here knows anything about. He takes a bite, and the sound he makes is so obscene that it pulls an uncharacteristically delighted laugh from Lardo.

"I thought you might like them," she says, and Chowder nods vigorously as he devours one more.

"They're my _favorite_ ," he says, his mouth full. "But I thought - "

Lardo cocks her eyebrow. "You thought?"

"I thought you were Vietnamese… " he says, and Lardo rolls her eyes.

"You think we don't eat Cantonese food, too?"

"Well… " Chowder begins. In truth, he's only known a few Vietnamese kids, and he never really asked what they ate at home. At school, they ate what everyone did - bland burgers and prefab pizza. His own family goes for Vietnamese at least twice a month - the phở in Little Saigon ("It's pronounced ' _fuh_ ', like 'fuck'," his older brother tells him with a wink when he's seven) is the best - but he's never considered that Vietnamese families might go for dim sum, too.

Lardo laughs. "Don't be too hard on yourself. It's kind of a thing in my family, since my parents grew up mostly in Hong Kong before they came here."

"How'd they end up there?" Chowder asks as he pulls a third tart from the box and takes a bite.

Lardo shrugs again. "Refugees. My dad got there in '77, and my mom in '83, and they met in a refugee camp there. They got out eventually and had a store for awhile, but after my oldest sister was born they emigrated here - fresh off the boat."

Chowder nods. He doesn't know much about history, and even less about stuff that happened in other countries, but his own grandparents had come from Hong Kong as well, and Lardo's story makes him feel connected to her in a way he hasn't connected with anyone at Samwell before. It's not that he doesn't like it here - god, he loves it. Most of the time, anyway. But he can count on two hands the number of people he's seen who look like him and Lardo, and sometimes it's just so…

"Yeah," Lardo says, and Chowder realizes he must have said some of that out loud. "Like, I love the team, and I really love not living at home, you know? But sometimes you just want to be with people who get it."

She looks over at Chowder for a moment, rare fondness in her eyes, and reaches out to ruffle his hair.

"And it _is_ Chinese New Year," she says, Chowder's eyes widening.

"Oh my god - I totally forgot!" he cries with a grin. "Thanks, Lardo - really. This - I really appreciate it!"

"It's no problem, kid," she replies, smirking.

They sit in comfortable silence for a minute or two, the light of Lardo's desk lamp dim enough that the falling snow outside is still visible even in the dark. After a moment, Chowder asks quietly, "You think Bitty might like to try one?"

Lardo casts a worried glance out her door, then shrugs and says, "Can't hurt to ask." Her eyes meet Chowder's, and with a shared smile they shout together, "BITTY!"

Wood scrapes against wood, then the sound of a door being thrown open and footsteps coming down the hall, and there's Bitty in Lardo's doorway, eyes wide with alarm.

"What's going on?" he says, and Chowder jumps up out of his chair, waving his hands in front of him.

"Nothing! Nothing, Bitty! We just - " he looks down at Lardo sitting on her bed, and she gives him a subtle nod. Chowder picks up the box and holds it out towards Bitty. "We thought - I mean, Lardo brought these back from Boston, and I thought - we thought you might want to try one."

Bitty frowns, glances at Lardo, then back at Chowder's hopeful face and comes in, peering down into the open box. A smile - real, this time, reaching his eyes - spreads across his face.

"What are they?" he asks, glancing at them both.

Chowder pulls one out and hands it to him. "Egg tarts - Chinese egg tarts, I mean, like my mom makes!" Bitty breathes it in, lingering spices from the bakery lending the tart a strange unfamiliarity. He takes a bite, closes his eyes, and lets out a small groan.

"Oh, that _is_ good," he says, and Chowder beams. "I wonder how difficult they are to make?"

"My mom would know - would you really try to make them sometime?"

This time, it's Bitty who glances stealthily at Lardo with an indulgent smile on his face.

"For you, honey, anything."

Returning his look, Lardo nods at the empty space next to her on the bed, and Bitty moves to sit beside her with a soft sigh. She wraps her arm around him, and they lean their heads together, watching fondly as Chowder whips his phone out and begins texting away, with more enthusiasm than they've seen from him in an age.


End file.
